A Window on American War Tax Resistance in 1951

While I wasn’t paying attention, someone scanned in many back issues of
Friends Bulletin, the journal of the Pacific Yearly
Meeting and Pacific Coast Association of Friends. This has allowed me another
window onto the state of American war tax resistance, Quaker war tax resistance
in particular, in the last half of the
20th century.

Here,
for example, from the April, 1951 issue, is an
article on an early Peacemakers tax refusal pledge that includes a complete
list of signatories, including several I hadn’t heard of before:

Tax Refusal

On March 15 there were among those who did
not pay their Federal income taxes the following 59 persons who joined
together to support a statement distributed by the Tax Refusal Committee of
Peacemakers, 2013 Fifth Ave.,
N.Y.,
N.Y. Reverend Ernest
Bromley is chairman of this subcommittee of Peacemakers: A.J. Muste is
secretary of Peacemakers. A part of their statement is: “Feeling that war must
inevitably come unless something drastic is done by individuals to show their
unwillingness to go along with war-making policies of their governments, we
the undersigned state hereby that we are not going to pay our federal income
taxes due March 15. For some of us this
means that we will not pay that percentage which corresponds to the nation’s
outlay for militarism; for others of us it means we will not pay even the
first cent for the maintenance of a government whose main business is
preparation for annihilation…”

And here’s an early example of a plea for a “peace tax”-style accommodation for conscientious objectors to military taxation, from the January, 1951 issue:

Tax Petition

On Saturday, December 9, in Whittier,
Calif., there was combined
with the annual meeting of the southern California office of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation a program sponsored by the Peace Board of California Yearly
Meeting. One of the results of the day is the following petition:

To the Congress of the United States of America

We the undersigned citizens of the United States of America believe:

That present tensions between the free enterprise and communist group of
nations are the result of reliance upon military force as an instrument of
political determination;

That the threat or use of such force can never result in a just or mutually
satisfactory resolution of these tensions;

That the labor and material expended in building up military might would
have and still might lead to a peaceful and mutually satisfactory solution if
used instead indiscriminately to rebuild the homes and industries destroyed
in the last war.

We further believe:

That the military way violates the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” and the
Golden Rule by which a Christian must live.

That to supply the means to induce of compel another to do that which we
cannot do is equally a violation of those Commandments.

Therefore relying on our Constitutional Bill of Rights which our nation is
this week honoring, and the Right of Petition thereby guaranteed, we humbly
pray your august body that you pass legislation exempting all of like
religious belief from income tax to be used in support of military
establishment and substitute the use of that portion of our tax which is to
our total tax as the amount used for military is to the national total, to
that committee of the United Nations seeking a peaceful abatement of these
tensions, thus giving the citizens of the United States the opportunity of
paying taxes for the support of war or peace according to the dictates of
their own conscience.

Find Out More!

For more information on the topic or topics below (organized as “topic →
subtopic →
sub-subtopic”), click on any of the ♦ symbols to see other pages on this site that cover the topic. Or browse the site’s topic index at the “Outline” page.